For the second successive day, Ferrari's Felipe Massa has topped the timesheets at Sakhir, outpacing McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Maranello teammate Kimi Raikkonen.

On the penultimate day of pre-season testing the Brazilian, using the new aero package used by Raikkonen on Tuesday, completed 100 laps on his way to posting a best time over 0.5s faster than anyone else.

Both Massa and Raikkonen ran their engines to the end of their duty cycle, the equivalent of two race weekends. Both drivers continue here tomorrow.

Other than Hamilton, McLaren had Pedro de la Rosa on duty, with fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso watching much of the action from the pit-wall. The English driver lost track time in the morning with what is understood to be a hydraulic problem, however, by the end of the day he had completed 55 laps, one of them good enough for second spot on the timesheets.

After a disrupted first day of testing following Heikki Kovalainen's accident, Renault's efforts were split between repairing the damaged chassis and pursuing its development programme. By the end of the day, both goals had been reached, with a total of 136 laps completed - equating to over two full race distances.

Giancarlo Fisichella's second day of testing aimed to build upon the programme he began yesterday. His work focused on handling work, with several relatively long runs during the later part of the morning session, before conducting set-up and tyre testing in the second part of the day. The Italian once again made encouraging progress, and finished the day fourth fastest.

Heikki Kovalainen did not begin running until after lunch, as repairs to his car (chassis R27-03) were completed. The technical team performed miracles having to completely rebuild the car overnight, and the Finn commenced his programme at 13:30 local time. Following an installation lap and systems checks, the Finn was able to work on set-up solutions. In spite of his limited mileage, he finished the day 6th fastest.

"I was pleased to be able to get back out on track this afternoon," admitted Kovalainen. "The mechanics have done a fantastic job to repair the car so quickly, and a big thank you to the team for their efforts.

"It was important to run again today," he added, "and I was focused on getting the jobs done we needed to, to minimise the amount of lost time. We got some interesting results this afternoon, and now we need to make the most of our final day in order to wrap things up before Melbourne."

"I did lots of laps today," added Fisichella, "and that meant we made some good progress with the programme. I think we got some good results on the long runs as well as our performance work, so I am quite pleased. We will try and build on this work tomorrow during the final day of pre-season testing. It will be an important day."

"We made some good progress with our programme today," said Christian silk, "which was primarily focused on set-up testing. Giancarlo found some very encouraging solutions, and it looks quite encouraging. They confirm the choices we have made in recent weeks, and confirm that we have made some good progress in our understanding of the tyres and the car's handling.

"Heikki was able to get back out on track once the car had been repaired, which was positive," he added. "The team did a sterling job to get the car ready, Heikki was comfortable straight away, and pleased with the progress he made. All in all, it was a very positive day."

It was a mixed day for BMW, for though Nick Heidfeld had a relatively trouble-free day and completed his scheduled programme, which involved testing mechanical set-ups. Robert Kubica's programme was hampered by two stoppages, both down to hydraulics.

In the afternoon the team was able to complete its scheduled programme and concentrated on optimizing mechanical set-up on both cars and carried out some tyre comparisons

Both drivers will continue here tomorrow, doing final systems checks for the season opener in Melbourne. They will also carry out the final confirmation of the cooling system as the highest ambient temperature of the entire pre-season testing is expected in Bahrain tomorrow.

Honda had its two race drivers back on duty, with Jenson Button proving to be the quicker of the two, albeit 1.65s off Massa's pace.

Both drivers did some early set-up laps to acclimatise to the car and the track conditions. The Englishman then worked through an aero programme alongside suspension evaluations while his Brazilian teammate spent the day working through general chassis set-up work and a further aero programme.